


The Friends You Have

by thrakaboom



Category: Generation X (Comic), Marvel 616, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Nostalgia, Post HoX/PoX
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22070647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrakaboom/pseuds/thrakaboom
Summary: Jono reflects on his days in Generation X, and the friendships that he had.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: X-Men Server Winter Gift X-Change





	The Friends You Have

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allan_schrieber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allan_schrieber/gifts).



> Set during the middle of New Mutants (2019) #2. I hope I did a good job!

It was probably silly to miss the “good old days”, considering they started with Emplate attempting to suck the marrow from his very bones. But, millions of miles away from home with people who all were better friends with one another than him, Jono couldn’t help feel homesick for another time, and another set of people.

Even his supposed old classmate he didn’t really know, not truly. He liked Mondo well enough, but he couldn’t help but have his hackles raised around him. He wasn’t sure if this was the Mondo he had known, and if he were- would he betray them yet again? He didn’t want to believe it; he hadn’t wanted to then either.

Things had changed so much since he was that angry young man landing in Logan Airport, out of London for the first time in his life. He would have never guessed then he would be out in Shi’ar space with the New Mutants while Sunspot and Cannonball cuddled on the couch the way he did as a young man with Cannonball’s own younger sister (talk about awkward). He also couldn’t help but feel jealous of the New Mutants.

They all had each other back again.

Jono hadn’t even spoken with his old classmates since being on Krakoa, let alone gone to space just because he missed one. The friends he had at eighteen, the best friends of his life, and he hadn’t spoken with them, other than with Mondo and brief pleasantries with the girls. He had been unable to face Everett and Angelo. He hadn’t actively avoided them, but he steered clear when he saw them walking the beach together, hand and hand and speaking in low terms. He couldn’t contend with their coming back to life, after all these years.

The friends you have as a teenager…

He watched Dani punch Doug in the arm, and thought back to doing this as a young man, as a teenager, the games they would play on the off hours, or the numerous times they would find reasons to slack on training- even if Paige and Everett and huffed and puffed every time they had been dragged into skipping. Of course, both of them had always enjoyed it.

There had been a time, he remembers, a nice sunny day in summer and not a supervillain in sight. He had been trying to teach them cricket, the game he had sorely missed in America. M- the twins at the time- had been the only one remotely decent at the game. Jubes had kept complaining and saying that back when she was an X-Men, they had played baseball. Banshee, Sean, had just sat on the porch laughing at him as he tried to find the way to explain the best way to explain the concept of two bases with the least amount of mental strain on his part.

Finally, they had ended up getting some mutated hybrid of the two ball games going, but it had soon devolved to chaos when Monet had slashed the ball in two trying to pitch. Paige had called it Mutant Ball, he remembered. Angelo had called it a sack of crap, but he had been smiling. Jono remembers the phantom sensation of a grin on his own lips as he pitched. That had been the first day he remembers not cringing at the word mutant, not when it had come from Paige’s mouth, and not with his friends laughing and joking about it around him.

The friends you have as a teenager. Monet.

His first friend in the states, back when she was stuck as Penance, half animalistic and all scared. They’ve both come so far from the people the once were. Had he known then who they would become, he would have called himself a liar. He wouldn’t believe himself. They had both grown, evolved. He missed her, even though he had seen her just a week ago. He missed all of them, even when he didn’t face them.

“Hey, man, you alright?” Jono felt the flesh and dirt hand of Mondo on his shoulder. “You’ve been kinda spacing out since the game ended.”

“ _I’m alright._ ” He replied. His psychic speech was second nature now, not like when he had first met Mondo, or who they had all believed to be Mondo. He was still learning not to be on edge around him. This seems to be the man he knew, without any of the programming from Black Tom to want to turn on him and kill them. “ _Just remembering._ ”

“It’s weird, isn’t it, how close they all still are, huh?” Mondo said, looking up at him as the two watched Dani throw Doug over her shoulder. “We used to be like that.”

Jono let out a psychic snort and shrugged off Mondo’s hand. “ _Not really. Not the two of us._ ”

They stood in silence, watching. Jono wondered if they were both thinking of the same moments. Was Mondo thinking about how he hunted them, about Everett’s face as he died? Or was he thinking about scrabble nights and passing notes behind Sean’s back during class? Did he remember Jubilee’s Fourth of July displays and how the Danger Grotto grew apples just for Monet? What about passing Artie and Leech from set of shoulders to pair of arms?

“This makes them miss them too,” Mondo finally said. “I like the New Mutants, Doug is great, Illyana is the scariest woman I’ve ever met but, I wish we were on this trip with our old friends too.”

“ _How did you-_ “

“Jono, you never were as mysterious as you thought. You were too much of a softie at heart.” Mondo grinned, teasing him. “Acted like everyone’s big brother half the time.”

Jono crossed his arms, but his shoulders loosened from how tense they were. This was his friend, through it all. It wouldn’t be the first time Jono became friends again with someone who had tried to kill him. He and Mondo had too much history, too many memories to separate from each other, especially out here in lonely space with a bunch of people who fit together like puzzle pieces, leaving the two of them to try to find a spot.

You never have friends like the ones you had as a teenager again.

He paused before turning to look at Mondo. “ _When we get back to earth… How about a class reunion?_ ”

Mondo grinned. “I think it’s been long enough since we were all together. Everyone’s alive again, and on Krakoa too. We should, assuming we live that long.”

Jono felt the warmth of a smile at the old joke. “ _Assuming we live that long._ ”


End file.
